pret a porter
by Celia Stanton
Summary: "This is, hands down, the stupidest idea you've ever had, Oliver Queen." Oliver/Felicity, established.


_Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein do not belong to me. This story is purely for entertainment purposes. No infringement is intended._

_Author's Notes: Howdy, all! Dipping my toe into a new fandom/obsession. I hope the water's nice. This is pretty much just a silly little thing of nothingness, but I'd love to hear what you think nonetheless._

_Prompt from notababoonbrandishingastick on Tumblr. Thanks, doll!_

* * *

"Well, this is a disaster."

There's no audible reply to his teasing, but instead a whirlwind of blonde ponytail and frustrated muttering.

He leans against the doorjamb, arms crossed and eyes amused, and watches as Felicity hops around on one foot as she switches out her shoes. Discarded dresses lay mournfully between them, casualties of a war he hasn't quite figured out the origins of; from the looks of things, it was a brutal one, and his delight starts to give way to concern.

He enters her bedroom fully just as she's trying to check herself in the mirror and switching out her footwear again, reaching for her and sliding a hand down her arm, cupping her elbow and turning her to face him. His breath catches a little in his throat when her eyes slide shut at first contact, a thrill sliding through him that even after everything, after all this time and all they are, the simplest of touches still steadies her- nothing more, just him.

Just _them._

The flustered blush on her cheeks starts to lighten, and she takes a deep breath before meeting his gaze.

The _talk to me_ remains unspoken, but she hears it loud and clear. "This is, hands down, the stupidest idea you've ever had, Oliver Queen."

Concern cedes to confusion as he puts a hand on her hip, trying to draw an explanation out of her. "What's the matter?"

Her eyes rise to flirt with her hairline. "What's the matter? What's the _matter_? We were supposed to be in the car ten minutes ago so I can go meet your mother, and you're asking me what's the _matter_?"

His brow furrows as he tries to make sense of her - though, then again, she's a question to which there is no known answer. (He's still willing to study it forever, though. That's a lesson he'd love to learn.) "You do realize you already _know_ my mother, right?"

"Not as your girlfriend!" she cries in her Loud Voice, and he pulls her a half-step toward him, rubbing circles on her hipbone with his thumb, trying to calm her again. "I'm just the girl who showed up uninvited at the hospital; the IT girl turned assistant who made an ass out of herself the first chance she could. I'm nobody."

He hates how matter-of-fact she sounds when she says that, and he moves his hand from her hip to her back, fingers stroking her spine and drawing her even closer. "Felicity," he says quietly, "you're everything."

"Except dressed! Are we going business casual? A little dressier? How short is too short? Bare arms?"

He has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. She's one of the most brilliant minds he knows; brave and stubborn to excess - she lured a serial killer, for God's sake - and here she is, worrying about whether or not she'll need a cardigan.

He apparently doesn't hide his amusement well enough, because she leans back and smacks him on the chest. "Oliver! This is serious!"

He tilts his head and regards her, lips pursed and slightly disbelieving, and the deja vu of it all wraps warmly around them. "Felicity. She's going to love you. Just like I do."

She sighs again, but it doesn't release the tension from her frame at all. He kisses her temple before sliding out from in front of her and grabbing the black dress with a criscrossed back and her black suede boots. "Here."

A flash of recognition crosses her face; it's the same outfit she'd worn while they were chasing Shrapnel. (He will never get over the irony that for all the pain inflicted that night, it was Oliver's own actions that nearly brought about another undoing. He may not have failed his city, but he'd failed her, and somehow that felt bigger.)

He'd gone to her neighborhood that night, something he didn't do often because she deserved a private life - something away from him, something that won't blacken the silver of her soul, despite how he just knows that's going to be the one thing that saves them all in the end – and sat in a misty drizzle on the roof of the building across the street from her apartment, watching her in shadow and silhouette. He knows she deserves more than this, but she's the one person who brings out the selfishness of pre-island Oliver; he just doesn't want to share her with anyone else. She is his own little slice of elsewhere, the once upon a time in their happy story.

They are not opposites as he'd once thought, but instead counterbalance; he is walls and she is the pick axe, unsullied where he is tarnished and light where he is dark. She makes him want to hope again, that most dangerous of words; that thing that will fell him every time despite all the training in the world.

He'd known he was taking chances taking shelter in her, but he also knew he couldn't risk leaving any secrets by either of their graves, and when she'd made him about thirty minutes after his arrival, he'd picked up his buzzing cellphone, sighing tiredly as his greeting.

"Go home, Oliver," she'd said gently, salvation and sanctity in her voice, fingers following the line of the raindrops as they'd rolled leisurely down her window.

(He finds out much later just how magic those fingers are, both on and off the clock, and he marvels at how someone so petite was able to hold him so firmly in the palm of her hand.)

"I'm sorry," he'd repeated, and even from his distant perch, he had seen her smile, and the noose of turning his potentially favorite mistake into a monumental one had unfurled just enough to let him breathe again.

"Good night," she'd replied, even though it wasn't, and as he feels the weight of the hanger in his hand now, he realizes that on some level, he wants to replace those memories of their near miss, of the potential ending he very nearly caused, with those of new beginnings - starting with dinner with his mother.

He hands her the outfit and she turns so her back is to him, and he slides the zipper down of the twelfth dress she'd rejected. He leans forward slightly, kissing her shoulder and wrapping an arm around her waist, relishing the quiet moment when she leans back against his chest and covers her hand, threading her fingers with his at they rest on her abdomen. He nuzzles just behind her ear and chuckles warmly against her skin when she shivers. "We could always cancel, you know," he murmurs, and she cranes her head back to kiss the underside of his chin.

"It's tempting," she replies in a low voice, one she seems to reserve only for him, gentle and just this side of sultry, and he tightens his hold on her, idly wondering if she realizes just how much she's done that for him - held on at the exact moment when he felt he might fly apart. Despite escaping the island, he'd still been in purgatory until she'd found the road to help get him out of it, the one that will never be made of yellow brick and has fault lines running beneath but that still leads them to holy middle ground.

(He's rescued her a few times, but she saves him over and over.

He's starting to think _remarkable_ is the understatement of the century.)

The dress slides off and she steps out of the pooled fabric. His eyes rake heatedly over her and he has a bit of head rush - somehow he thinks that spark will always be ripe for conflagration, and for the first time in a long time, his focus is on a tomorrow alight in possibility rather than the knowledge that his only easy days are yesterdays - and she smiles as she turns so he can zip her up. "Later," she says, but damn if the little minx doesn't reach behind her and run a hand along the front of his trousers.

"Not fair," he groans, and she just grins, grabbing her boots.

"Love and war, Mr. Queen. Love and war."

(He's seen enough of the latter, and as he takes her hand in his, he revels in the abundance of the former.)

fin


End file.
